In a following post, he praised the counterterrorism tactics of a U.S. general in the Philippines in the early 1900s. Most historians say that the methods were unproven legends and that even if they were used, they did not work.

Back Story

It commemorates the 1897 discovery of the role that the insects play in transmitting malaria, a disease that has long bedeviled humanity, killing an estimated 429,000 people in 2015, according to the World Health Organization.

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To find reassurance, we look for strategies that make it possible to answer those questions in a reassuring way.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, for instance, many avoided flying. People who worked in small, anonymous offices could comfort themselves that only buildings as high-profile as the World Trade Center or the Pentagon were at risk of being targeted.

But cars, trucks and vans are all around us. There is no set of rules or limits, short of withdrawing entirely from public life, that would fully protect against an attack like this.

The risks of being killed in this kind of attack are low. In the United States alone, car accidents kill 30,000 to 40,000 people a year. Worldwide, terrorist attacks using cars or other vehicles have killed a tiny fraction of that number.

But that calculus cannot reason fear away. The possibility of an accident feels different from the possibility of being deliberately, if randomly, targeted for murder.

Still, the story of cities has always been one of managing seemingly widespread dangers, including terrorism.

In the early 1990s, after Provisional I.R.A. terrorists placed a bomb in a garbage can in London’s Victoria train station, the city removed many of the bins. Visiting the city, one was left either to puzzle at the absence of refuse or, if one knew why the cans were absent, to see every bin-less street as a reminder that a bomb could be waiting around any corner. The fear eventually grew less shocking, transmuting into the background of dangers inherent in living in a city.

By twisting the purpose of a commonplace machine, attacks like the one in Barcelona create a sense that public life is tinged with inescapable danger. When anything can become a weapon, that chips away at the hope that terrorist attacks are somehow predictable or controllable. It does not take any special skills or resources to obtain a van and drive it into a crowd of innocent people. All it takes is motivation.

That fear is not merely unpleasant. It can have real impact on society and politics.

The recent attacks in Europe may help to explain, for instance, why a recent study from Chatham House, a British research organization, found that over half of Europeans support a ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries.

Other research shows that when people feel they are under attack because of their membership in a particular group, like their religion, their nationality or their race, they become more attached to that identity, and more hardened and suspicious toward outsiders. That can promote what social scientists call “outgrouping” — fear of outsiders and a desire to control or punish them. When terrorist organizations target, say, Westerners, that leads to outgrouping behavior.

That feeling of “us” versus “them” divides society, heightening prejudices and creating social battle lines — precisely the sort of politics championed by right-wing populists who have grown popular in Europe and the United States.

This research suggests that the fear created by the attack, by undermining public trust and unity, could cause another deep and lasting harm, less visible than the immediate casualties but still tremendously powerful.

Whatever the effect of such attacks on Western politics, they are already changing, in subtle but unmistakable ways, the mental geography of urban life. As cities inevitably produce more barriers to wall off the remote threat of another attack, we will grow only more conscious of the ever-present threat posed by ordinary objects.

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Photo

Millicent Garrett Fawcett in 1920. She considered herself a suffragist, a moderate opposed to the sometimes violent protests of those known as suffragettes.Credit
Bain News Service, via Library of Congress

LONDON — Britain, which has its second female prime minister and a queen who is the world’s longest-reigning monarch, is getting its first statue of a woman in Parliament Square in London, where there are 11 statues of men.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Sunday that Millicent Garrett Fawcett, who campaigned for the right of women to vote, will be honored with a statue to stand in the company of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.

Mrs. Fawcett formed the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in 1897 and died at age 82 in 1929, a year after all women in the United Kingdom were granted the right to vote.

Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. May said, “continues to inspire the battle against the injustices of today.” She added: “It is right and proper that she is honored in Parliament Square alongside former leaders who changed our country. Her statue will stand as a reminder of how politics only has value if it works for everyone in society.”

The statue will be paid for from a 5 million pound fund announced in this year’s spring budget to celebrate next year’s centenary of the first British women to get the vote.

Mrs. Fawcett considered herself a suffragist, a moderate opposed to the sometimes violent protests of campaigners like Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, a mother and daughter who were known as suffragettes.

Mrs. Fawcett, a political and union leader, is not the only woman to be honored by the British government this year. Jane Austen’s image will be on the new polymer £10 note, replacing that of Charles Darwin.

The Bank of England caused some controversy when it put Churchill on the new polymer £5 bill, replacing the social reformer Elizabeth Fry. The bank responded to the outcry by putting Austen on bills scheduled to be issued this fall.

Those bills will feature a quote from Austen’s book “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”

In the United States, some have argued against the Treasury’s plan to move President Andrew Jackson, who owned slaves, to the back of the $20 bill and to place Harriet Tubman, a former slave who escaped to freedom and helped others do the same, on the front. But that plan is proceeding.

Caroline Criado-Perez, who started a petition campaign for a suffrage statute in London, praised the choice of Mrs. Fawcett and thanked supporters.

Writing on Twitter, Ms. Criado-Perez said: “Delighted with such a decisive response” from Mrs. May. “Huge thank you to everyone who supported the campaign from the beginning,” including Mayor Sadiq Khan of London.

Mrs. Fawcett inspired a women’s rights charity, the Fawcett Society. Its chief executive, Sam Smethers, said of plans for a statue in her honor: “Her contribution was great, but she has been overlooked and unrecognized until now. By honoring her, we also honor the wider suffrage movement.”

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Normally, the Pentagon does not like to disclose details that military planners view as “operational,” and the specific location of unexploded American ordnance is included in that definition. But General Townsend said on Thursday that he believed it was necessary to find a way around the 25-year declassification process.

“I’m of the belief that if it’s history, there’s nothing wrong with the world knowing about it,” General Townsend said. His was speaking at a meeting in Baghdad with reporters who were accompanying Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of United States Central Command, on a trip to Iraq.

“We want to help clear explosive remnants of war from Mosul, and from all the places we’re helping the Iraqis fight,” General Townsend said. “So we’ll find a way to do it.”

Defense officials said the coordinates of unexploded American ordnance in Ramadi, Falluja and other spots in Iraq would probably be declassified as well.

At the moment, removal experts can get the six-digit coordinates of unexploded ordnance from American military officials. But those unclassified reports place the dud bombs only within a 100-meter circle — a huge area that can take hours, and even days, to search.

Defense officials said that one plan would divulge the 10-digit grid coordinates of dud bombs. That would pinpoint the ordnance to a one- to three-meter area. The dud rate for American bombs depends on the type of bomb used. American officials say that around 2 to 3 percent of ordnance dropped in airstrikes does not explode.

“Every army, if you fight over a piece of ground, you will leave a dud,” General Townsend said. “Bombs don’t go off. But we’ll find a way to help them.”

In the month since the Iraqi government announced the liberation of Mosul, the city has begun the painstaking task of putting itself back together.

“When we went into the city, there were tons of I.E.D.s, explosives, tunnels,” Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for the Iraqi military, said Thursday. “We are cleaning now the city, and we hope that when everything is done, the citizens will come back and start their lives again.”

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vivastudio’s ‘GROUNDED’ Collection Features Rock Star-Inspired Styles

Recently, vivastudio unveiled its Fall/Winter 2017 collection, which takes inspiration from the 1990s. More specifically, it draws from the styles that were boasted by members of some of the time’s most memorable rock bands.

In order to promote the apparel that comprises the new vivastudio collection, the brand also released a lookbook that’s full of minimalist imagery that draws attention to the retro patterns, colors, and cuts that are used for the diverse range of designs.

Some of the most unique pieces in the collection are the brightly hued cardigans and sweaters, the velvet button-up jackets, and the various styles of graphic apparel, which are imbued with the name of the collection, as well as slogans that take consumers back in time.

]]>http://funisfun.xyz/news/90s-inspired-korean-fashion-vivastudios-grounded-collection-features-rock-star-inspired-styles-trendhunter-com/feed/0Political Rage Over Statues? Old News in the Old Worldhttp://funisfun.xyz/news/political-rage-over-statues-old-news-in-the-old-world/
http://funisfun.xyz/news/political-rage-over-statues-old-news-in-the-old-world/#respondThu, 17 Aug 2017 23:51:44 +0000http://funisfun.xyz/news/political-rage-over-statues-old-news-in-the-old-world/

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Take the Czech Republic, for instance.

After World War I, statues from the vanished Hapsburg empire were quickly taken down and replaced by Czechoslovakia’s new, democratic heroes, like Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, its first president. After World War II, Communists erased Masaryk from public tributes, but he was put back in place after that system collapsed. One statue of Masaryk in the small town of Holesov was taken away and re-erected five times, said Zdenek Lukes, a historian and architect in Prague.

Photo

The statue of Jozef Tiso in Cakajovce, Slovakia. Monuments to Tiso, a wartime leader, are shunned in most of the country.Credit
Akos Stiller for The New York Times

Mr. Lukes opposes the removal of such statues, but he said that in some cases a little historical context must be added. “I like the solution they used in the town of Litomysl,” Mr. Lukes said. “Instead of removing a statue of the Communist minister of culture, they placed a plaque there explaining who he was and what he did.”

Slovakia, which broke away after the fall of communism, also reveres Masaryk, but has built its own stable of national heroes, with the biggest disputes over the country’s wartime leader, Jozef Tiso, who was hanged for collaborating with the Nazis. Though monuments to Tiso are still shunned in most of the country, the small village of Cakajovce has erected its own Pantheon of Slovak Historical Figures, with Tiso at the center.

The recent bloody history of Eastern Europe, where occupation by Nazis and then Soviets scrambled political allegiances, has made the region especially susceptible to these waves of political upheaval. But such disputes are not confined to the East.

The spectacular tomb of Spain’s former fascist ruler, Gen. Francisco Franco, at Valle de los Caidos is still a pilgrimage destination for conservative Spaniards, and has survived several efforts to remove it.

In Italy, the right-wing mayor of Brescia tried in 2013 to restore a monumental statue of a muscular youth from 1932, called “Fascist Era” — but nicknamed Bigio by residents — to its perch in the center of town.

The statue, placed in storage after the war, should be seen as a work of art, the mayor argued, bled of its fascist baggage. Many disagreed, vehemently. He lost the next election, and his successor chose to keep Bigio in storage, where he remains.

In Germany, Nazi images and symbols were scrubbed from public spaces immediately after the war, and the display of the swastika and other Nazi symbols is illegal. The site of the bunker where Hitler died has been obscured, to deny neo-fascists a rallying point. The Olympic Stadium, where Hitler presided over the 1936 Games, is still in use, though stripped of all Nazi regalia.

Photo

The Valley of the Fallen in Madrid, a monument that contains the tomb of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.Credit
Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

The fall of the Berlin Wall presented fresh challenges. Statues of Lenin were swiftly removed in the early 1990s, but some sites were converted, including a former prison for the Communist security police that was turned into an informational center teaching about the past.

The goal, Culture Minister Monika Grütters of Germany said, is to “explain everything, without holding back, without an agenda, without seeking to be in the right.”

The extent to which these political symbols from the past still inflame emotions can be seen from a passerby’s reaction in Dresden this month to a drunken American tourist giving a Nazi salute — a solid punch in the face.

Normally, when jarring political changes happen, the statues of the former leaders and heroes are among the first casualties. Iraqis pulled Saddam Hussein from his perch in Firdos Square in 2003, and there are countless shots of Lenin flat on his face after the collapse of the Soviet empire.

To Ivaylo Dichev, a professor of culture anthropology at Sofia University in Bulgaria, the recent scenes from the United States have a clear resonance. “Eastern Europe went through a similar period in the ’90s, when a lot of Communist-era monuments were removed,” he said.

In many cases, countries chose to move Communist-era statues to tourist-oriented sites, like Gruto Parkas in Lithuania and Memento Park outside Budapest.

But that has not halted controversies over public monuments.

In 2007, the removal from the center of Estonia’s capital of a statue of a Soviet soldier, head bent to mourn the deaths of comrades killed fighting the Nazis, resulted in riots by ethnic Russians.

A statue dedicated to Soviet heroes in a park near Parliament was painted red several times by activists. And a monument dedicated to “all the victims” of the Nazi occupation of Hungary, in the same park, was widely criticized as an attempt by Mr. Orban’s government to obscure Hungary’s wartime history by ignoring its collaboration with the Nazis in the murder of Hungary’s Jews.

In Bulgaria, the authorities decided this year to remove a huge Soviet-era monument that had been left to molder in Sofia since Communism’s collapse. But in July, pro-Russian protesters took to the streets, and the demolition was temporarily halted.

This was after activists, in 2011, defaced a huge monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia’s main park by painting its heroic figures to look like Superman, Santa Claus and Ronald McDonald. The monument has been a regular target of politically minded vandals ever since. In 2013, someone painted all the figures bright pink, spurring an official complaint from the Russian Embassy and an apology from the Bulgarian government.

But not all disputes over public statuary in Europe are fallout from the Nazi and Soviet years. Continuing political turmoil has produced fresh ones.

The breakup of Yugoslavia in the wars of the 1990s caused many of the countries that emerged — including Croatia and Macedonia — to remove monuments to the former country’s Communist-era leader, Josip Broz Tito.

In Skopje, Macedonia’s capital, where Tito’s image was once ubiquitous, he now presides mainly outside a single elementary school named for him. Instead, fresh disputes over public statuary have flared up.

Photo

The main Soviet Army monument in Sofia, Bulgaria, was painted in the colors of Ukraine’s flag in 2014 after pro-European protests in the city.Credit
Nikolay Doychinov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Eager to establish itself as a sovereign nation, Macedonia’s rulers went on a building spree in Skopje, erecting dozens of statues of contemporary political figures, as well as a giant one known as “Warrior,” but looking suspiciously like Alexander the Great — seen as a rebuke to the neighboring Greek province of Macedonia, which complained that Alexander was theirs to honor.

Now, the nationalist leader who went on the building spree, Nikola Gruevski, has been removed from office and his left-wing successors are trying to decide what to do with all the statues of lawmakers and ministers from a former government.

“In this case, we can see how certain symbology can be eruptive and damaging for a democracy when used in political causes,” said Aleksandar Petrov, an architect and author in Skopje.

Of course, such problems have bedeviled Europe since the dawn of civilization as new conquerors erased traces of their predecessors, leaving behind a patchwork of stone survivors from ancient Rome to the Holy Roman Empire whose subjects may not have been exemplars of human rights and modern morality.

“Nobody would even think of removing statues of Napoleon or Roman emperors,” said Mr. Lukes, the Czech historian.

After a certain point, time erases political enmity and the images lose much of their symbolic power. Perhaps, he said, a way forward in America would be to emulate Litomysl’s example and add context to the monument.

“I believe a plaque explaining who he was and what he did would suit General Lee very well,” Mr. Lukes said.

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Taco Bell’s New Naked Egg Taco Uses a Fried Egg in Place of a Shell

Consumers who are looking for a breakfast fix that’s on the healthier side are likely to find the new Naked Egg Taco from Taco Bell appealing. To get an understanding of whether or not the new menu addition would prove successful, the fast food chain tested it out in locations in Flint, Michigan, first.

Instead of a tortilla shell, the Naked Egg Taco uses a fried egg, making it lower in carbs and calories than many other alternatives. For toppings, consumers can either choose sausage or bacon as a protein base, which is then topped off with fried potato and oozes of cheddar cheese.

The Naked Egg Taco will be available throughout the US starting August 31st for the low price of $1.99.

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Along with a Congolese interpreter, they had gone to a part of Kasaï-Central Province to investigate a rebellion that had pockmarked the area with mass graves. Their own bodies were found in a shallow grave two weeks later. Ms. Catalán had been decapitated.

Photo

Michael J. SharpCredit
Reuters

The United Nations inquiry said that militia members were most likely responsible for the murders with a “reasonable likelihood that the killings were committed after consultation with other local tribal actors.” But others may also have been involved, the inquiry added.

The United Nations has called on the Congolese authorities to investigate the murders and appointed an internal board of inquiry to look into what happened, but it lacked the authority to carry out a criminal investigation. Critics charged that some Congolese officials were themselves implicated in the conflict in the region and in no position to carry out a credible investigation. Mr. Sharp’s father, John Sharp, called for an independent, international inquiry.

Jason Stearns, the director of the Congo Research Group and a former United Nations investigator, said the inquiry made it “seem that the deaths of Michael and Zaida could have been avoided if they had been less reckless and more circumspect.”

Mr. Stearns said the board should have been more forcible in pushing for a thorough investigation. “It is misleading to state that a local militia killed the investigators, and that there is no proof that the government was involved.”

“That makes it seem like the board of inquiry thoroughly investigated the identity of the killers — it did not,” he said. “The main goal of the board of inquiry was to find out whether U.N. rules and regulations were followed, not to establish the identity of the killers.”

According to the board, the two investigators failed to inform their superiors or colleagues of their plans. They rode private motorbikes even though that was not recommended. They also did not request full security briefings or an armed escort.

They prized their independence, according to the board, and were under intense pressure to present their findings to the Security Council. “It is clear,” the report said, that the experts “became party to a situation where they did not believe U.N. security rules and regulations applied to them.”

The United Nations did not provide the experts with the simplest tracking devices commonly used by hikers, and which had been requested by a previous panel. The board recommended additional training for experts, and tracking devices on an “as needed basis.” It also called for better employment conditions “to attract more experienced candidates for these positions.” (Investigators have to buy their own health insurance.)

The two investigators disappeared while traveling to the town of Bunkonde to meet with leaders of a local militia. A United Nations official who met the pair told the inquiry that Ms. Catalán appeared to be uneasy on the eve of their departure.

They traveled through checkpoints manned by the militia and at least two controlled by government forces. At one point, members of the militia gathered near the Moyo River fired a shotgun to stop the motorbikes, wounding one of the drivers. The investigators were then taken to a nearby village, where they were confronted by its chief, his brother, and possibly the leader of another village. The militia took the investigators’ money and belongings, according to the report.

A grainy cellphone video, obtained and later presented by the Congolese government as evidence that it had nothing to do with the killings, shows what happened next: A cluster of men with rifles and red bandannas lead Ms. Catalán and Mr. Sharp, who were both barefoot, into a grove.

Mr. Sharp starts arguing. He and Ms. Catalán are forced onto the ground. Suddenly, shots are fired, hitting Mr. Sharp. Ms. Catalán screams and tries to run for cover. She is shot twice.

Their bodies were discovered weeks later in a shallow grave, laid out carefully, side by side, in opposite directions.

It was Ms. Catalán’s sister who first raised the alarm after receiving an unnerving call from her cellphone. Sensing something wrong, the family frantically reached out to Ms. Catalán’s colleagues in the United Nations. The organization praised its own conduct, saying “its response from the time it became apparent that Mr. Sharp and Ms. Catalán were missing was capable, timely, well-coordinated and caring.”

The F.B.I. and Swedish police have also been investigating the case separately, decrypting Ms. Catalán’s computer and scrutinizing video footage. But, the report said, the agencies “expect many months to complete the investigation.”

]]>http://funisfun.xyz/news/u-s-faults-u-n-report-on-killings-of-2-investigators-in-congo/feed/0Jihadist Is Liable for $3.2 Million for Damage to Shrines in Malihttp://funisfun.xyz/news/jihadist-is-liable-for-3-2-million-for-damage-to-shrines-in-mali/
http://funisfun.xyz/news/jihadist-is-liable-for-3-2-million-for-damage-to-shrines-in-mali/#respondThu, 17 Aug 2017 23:12:03 +0000http://funisfun.xyz/news/jihadist-is-liable-for-3-2-million-for-damage-to-shrines-in-mali/

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The judges said the money should cover damage to the buildings, economic losses suffered by local residents and moral harm caused by the loss of the city’s cultural heritage.

In their summary, the judges said that the attacks on the nine shrines and a mosque carried “a message of terror and helplessness,” destroyed “part of humanity’s shared memory and collective consciousness” and rendered “humanity unable to transmit its values and knowledge to future generations.”

The judges also said that some individuals might be compensated if they could show that their livelihoods had depended on the religious sites and the pilgrims and tourists who used to visit the city. The court’s ruling on Thursday also suggested that some of the money could be used for a memorial or some other commemoration or community program for the residents of Timbuktu.

Pieter de Baan, the director of the Trust Fund for Victims, whose management is separate from the court, said he was pleased with the ruling “because it was clear and helpful in its outline.” Mr. de Baan said the trust fund would need to raise money from governments and other sources.

He said his team would also have to track down people who might be eligible for individual compensation. That task will not be easy, he said, because many people have fled amid the upheaval in the area.

It is unclear whether Mr. de Baan’s team can operate in northern Mali, which diplomats say remains unsafe as various factions fight for power and smugglers and kidnappers are active.

The nine shrines that were destroyed and the mosque in Timbuktu that was damaged by the “morality brigade” that Mr. Mahdi led have already been rebuilt with the assistance of foreign donors.

The original Timbuktu shrines, brick and mud structures built from the 15th to 17th centuries atop the graves of Muslim scholars, were modest in comparison with the massive Buddha statues destroyed in Afghanistan and the Roman ruins demolished by the Islamic State in Syria and uncounted historical sites in Iraq. But no international court has jurisdiction over such crimes in those countries or over the continuing cultural devastation reported in Yemen.

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The My/Mo Mochi Ice Creams Come in Several Delicious Flavor Options

Mochi is a popular dessert that is loved the world over, so the new My/Mo Mochi Ice Creams come as a new way to enjoy the classic Asian treat. The ice creams are formulated in individual pieces that are 110 calories each, which will make it possible to enjoy them without having to commit to an entire bowl or scoop.

The My/Mo Mochi Ice Creams come in four favor varieties including Double Chocolate, Green Tea, Cookies & Cream, Ripe Strawberry and Sweet Mango. This makes them applicable for consumers of all kinds who are looking for a sweet, satisfying ice cream that is differently formatted for a delicious experience. The ice creams can be purchased in retail boxes or in bulk format.